Odd One Out
by JoeMerl
Summary: Even by Weasley standards, Hugo has always been an odd child. Perhaps the strangest thing about him? His favorite uncle is Percy. One-shot.


**Author's Notes:** I like my headcanon version of Hugo, and Percy is probably my second favorite Weasley after Ron. Hence, this story, which took a long time to (hopefully) get down right. Please enjoy!

* * *

Percy would often claim that he was the only normal person in his family, and to be fair, there was a degree of truth to that. Certainly he was not engaged in quirky habits like his Muggle-philic father or prankster brothers, nor did he tame dragons or hunt for treasure or fight Dark wizards on a regular basis. He had always been the responsible one, the rational one, and the one whose job was actual stable even if it wasn't glamorous, thank you very much. While certain relatives would dispute his point, in his mind at least he was the only Weasley without any sort of bizarre idiosyncracies.

If you had asked Percy who the _least_ normal member of his family was, he would have paused for just a moment before firmly stating: Hugo.

Hugo was Percy's nephew, the son of his youngest brother Ron and his wife, Hermione. Percy considered Ron one of his saner siblings, even if he fought psychotic sorcerers and soul-sucking dementors for a living, and Hermione was one of the few people Percy thought of as almost as level-headed as himself. Yet somehow, their traits combined in Hugo in ways that were just..._odd._ He had the typical Weasley looks, but his red hair grew in tangled curls that always seemed messy and long no matter how Hermione tried to groom them. He was absolutely tiny, even though neither of his parents were. And he was manic—always talking a mile a minute, switching between being totally unfocused and absolutely obsessive, going off on strange tangents and saying things that made sense to nobody but himself. Even by the standards of small children, or even of _Weasley_ children, he was positively barking.

And yet, despite all that wildness, he seemed to have inherited quite a bit of intelligence. He consistently beat most of his cousins at chess, even when his opponents were several years older. He read constantly. He asked a million questions about everything, even if his queries rarely made sense. And he seemed to watch people a lot, as if he were studying them.

Percy never knew quite what to make of Hugo.

And Hugo, for his part, was always trying to figure out what to make of him too.

* * *

Hugo really loved to spend time with Grandpa Weasley, who was fascinated with all things Muggle. Hugo himself knew a lot about Muggles because of his other grandparents, but Grandpa Weasley was always fun to talk to because he liked to ask questions and try to figure out why they did things this way or how their stuff even worked. He spent a lot of time collecting Muggle rubbish and trying to experiment with it, like when he managed to make a TV that ran on magic instead of electricity. Hugo's mum wouldn't let him help with that after the third time he shocked himself, but just watching Grandpa tinker and talking about it was a fascinating experience.

Most of all Hugo loved Muggle toys. Hugo never wanted the normal action figures that came to life and beat each other up; he wanted still ones so that he could just pick them up and beat them against each other himself. (His father found this completely baffling.) Hugo grinned one day as Grandpa Weasley set down a whole bag of broken playthings before him, all of which he had rummaged out of the local trash.

"Dad, look! I made Lord Voldemort!"

His father, who had been grousing about Quidditch scores from behind a copy of the _Daily Prophet,_ looked up long enough to frown at his son. "I think that's actually a girl's toy, son."

"Nope, I put a robe on it. It's Lord Voldemort," Hugo said, and cackled softly as he made the black-hooded Barbie doll strut around the kitchen table, waving a broken piece of straw in lieu of a wand. "_Avada Kedavra!_" he hissed, then swept an empty teacup onto the floor.

Percy, who had been talking to Grandma Weasley over by the counter, turned back and grimaced at his nephew's display. "Dad, you really should stop giving Hugo so much of that old Muggle junk."

"Why? Do you think Molly or Lucy would like some of it?"

Percy and his mother exchanged a look, rolling their eyes in unison.

* * *

Uncle Bill was probably Hugo's coolest-looking uncle because his face was covered in these really big, horrible scars. At first Hugo had just thought of them as a normal part of his uncle's face, but then he found out that he got them fighting a werewolf back in the War and _that was so cool I mean blimey that's awesome._ And _then_ he found out that the fight wasn't even on a full moon, the werewolf was just some crazy guy who liked to eat people in human form, and that made the scars _even cooler_.

His uncle also used to be a Gringott's Curse-Breaker and had spent years delving into the most secret, undiscovered tombs of ancient Egypt. Hugo could spend hours listening to him talk about curses that made grave-robbers grow extra heads, which Uncle Bill wound up breaking just so that he could rob the graves anyway. (Hugo also spent a good bit of time trying to figure out what the moral of these stories was supposed to be.)

"Can I go with you next time you go, huh? Can I _please,_ Uncle Bill?"

He chuckled, ruffling Hugo's thick red curls. "Sorry, kiddo, but I don't do much of that these days. I mostly work at my desk now."

Hugo frowned. "Why's that?"

"Well, I did Curse-Breaking back before I had your Aunt Fleur or the kids to look after. I can't just take off and spend months in Egypt anymore. I still take the occasional trip to negotiate goblin treaties, but these days I like to stay closer to home."

"I'm glad you do," Percy interrupted suddenly, having been listening to their conversation as he scratched out a report for work. "I never understood the appeal of those dangerous old tombs, to be honest. I know Audrey would kill me if _I_ tried doing something like that for a living."

Bill suddenly chuckled, and Percy let out a cry as his brother suddenly ruffled his hair as well. "Ah, Perce, you're just happy that I'm a boring paperpusher like you now! Next you'll be trying to get Charlie to come home and take care of his dragons by owl."

Percy grimaced and pulled himself away from Bill, carefully smoothing his hair back into place.

* * *

Uncle Charlie lived in Romania on a dragon reservation, which was basically the coolest thing anyone had ever done ever as far as Hugo was concerned. He _loved_ dragons (and Nundus and griffins and basilisks and merpeople and centaurs) and would have given anything to have one of his own.

His parents' old friend Hagrid once mentioned having won a dragon egg in a card game—so naturally, the next time Uncle Charlie was in the country Hugo challenged him to play Exploding Snap. Unfortunately Hugo lost, but he quickly changed tactics and started to ask for a dragon egg as a birthday gift instead. Charlie kept telling him that giving him one would be really illegal, but Hugo persisted and promised to take good care of it so that the Ministry of Magic would never even find out. Requests for the egg soon became a postscript to every letter Hugo sent him.

Finally, on Hugo's eleventh birthday he got a little box from Romania. Inside was a small, rock-hard piece of dragon eggshell. Hugo was ecstatic. He immediately began to wonder what to do with it, his main idea being to make it into an earring. ("Oh yeah, Mum, can I get my ear pierced?")

Ron leaned toward Hermione with a little smirk. "Do you think he remembers that he actually wanted what was _inside_ the egg?"

"Don't remind him."

That same birthday Uncle Percy got Hugo a book about the history of cauldrons.

"Well, what?" he asked as Ron gave him an incredulous look; Audrey had also expressed the opinion that this was a rather subpar purchase. "You said he liked to read, and he's starting school in a few months, so I thought something educational—"

"Wow, thanks Uncle Percy!" Hugo said, flipping through the pages and grinning ear to ear. "Hey, did you know that ancient Chinese wizards used to make cauldrons _out of_ dragon eggs? _Awesome._"

* * *

Uncle George's big thing was that he liked to play pranks. He and Hugo's dad even owned a joke shop together, but Hugo's dad was an Auror now so he didn't do much with the business. Uncle George ran it, which meant he got to spend his time coming up with funny ideas and then selling them to people _for money_, and then gave out free samples to the Weasley kids and ignoring his wife, siblings and siblings-in-law when they complained about it.

Oddly Hugo wasn't much of a prankster himself, but he liked watching pranks and didn't even mind if they were at his own expense. Like when all the kids were at the Burrow and Uncle George showed up with a random gift for Hugo but not anybody else. Hugo totally knew that he was about to get pranked, but he ripped open the box anyway and BOOM!, a bunch of ribbons suddenly shot out and wrapped him up so tightly that he fell onto the floor and could barely move. Everybody laughed except for Grandma Weasley, and Hugo laughed too even as he twisted around and tried to get to his feet.

"George, this isn't funny! Let him out."

"Alright, alright, don't have kittens," his uncle muttered, rolling his eyes as he brandished his wand.

"No, wait!" Hugo cried, finally managing to pull himself up into a sitting position. "I bet I can get out of this myself!"

"Hugo—"

"No, I can do it, just give me a sec—hmm—"

If Hugo's parents had been there his mum probably would have insisted on freeing him herself, but Grandma Weasley just rolled her eyes and sighed and went to get snacks as the other kids watched Hugo try to get untangled. His younger cousin Roxie even came over and tried to chew through the ribbons, accidentally biting Hugo in the process. George quirked his eyebrow, wondering if he should perhaps help his nephew anyway, but Hugo seemed to be legitimately enjoying himself, laughing in triumph when he finally managed to free one shoulder. He shrugged and followed his mum into the kitchen.

Uncle Percy was the only adult left in the room now, and he gave Hugo a look that was somewhere between incredulous and disdainful. "You really shouldn't let Uncle George treat you like that."

Hugo shrugged the best he could with that one free shoulder. "I don't mind. It's just like a game, except you don't know the rules when you start."

He grinned at Uncle Percy, thinking his response was quite clever, but Uncle Percy only shook his head in response. "I don't understand you, Hugo. I always hated when George and Fred used to pull pranks on me."

Hugo stopped struggling so that he could instead regard his uncle with a puzzled expression. "Why would they pull pranks on you if you didn't enjoy it?"

Percy raised an eyebrow at him, tried to think of a way to answer, but then went to break up an argument James and Albus had started in the other room.

Roxie continued to try chewing through the ribbons, but Hugo sat still for a long time, looking thoughtful.

* * *

Uncle Harry was pretty cool because he was the Boy Who Lived and used to be the Chosen One and because he also had a scar on his face, but it was only a small one so it wasn't as cool as Uncle Bill's. He had helped Hugo's father defeat Voldemort and worked with him at the Auror Office, sort of like his dad's sidekick or something. Uncle Harry was really nice and knew a lot about Defense Against the Dark Arts, and he would impress all his nieces and nephews by conjuring Patronuses and telling stories about the war. (They were never as fun as Hugo's dad's stories, though.)

Once Uncle Harry was telling a story about when the war had just started and he and Hugo's parents were still in Hogwarts. They were running this secret club that got busted by the Evil Frog-Woman Umbridge (as Ron always called her in his stories) and Harry was about to be arrested and kicked out of school. Hugo was enraptured as Uncle Harry described the scene: the Headmaster's office, with him and the Evil-Frog Woman and the famous Albus Dumbledore and the stupid old Minister for Magic and the good current Minister working as a spy—

"And Percy," Hugo's dad had interrupted suddenly. "Don't forget he was there."

Harry had, in fact, been purposefully avoiding that detail. Hugo grinned excitedly. "Was he a spy, too? Like Minister Shacklebolt?"

"Well...no," Uncle Harry said. "Er...he was working for Fudge at the time."

Hugo stared. "Why?"

"Because he was a bigger prat than ever back then," his father said dismissively. "He wasn't even on speaking terms with most of the family until right before the War ended."

Hugo stared at him as though it were inconceivable that two Weasleys could go that long without speaking to each other.

"Er," said Uncle Harry again. He went back to his story, but suddenly it didn't seem as fun anymore.

* * *

Hugo also really liked his Aunt Ginny. She had once been a Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies, but was retired now and instead wrote Quidditch stories for the _Daily Prophet. _That meant that she _got paid to watch Quidditch,_ and sometimes when she covered a game with the Chudley Cannons she managed to get extra tickets and take Hugo and Rose along. One year they even got to see the Cannons play in the quarter finals! The two siblings were still grinning as the game entered its third hour, pointing out each player and easily reciting their most recent stats by heart.

Uncle Percy had actually come along for that game, not because he was a big fan but because he had some sort of work thing to discuss with the coaches afterwards. At one point he had smiled slightly and leaned over to them, pointing at one of the Appleby Arrow's Chasers.

"You'll notice they have a new coach this year. Know why?"

"Why?"

"Their coach last year, Adelbert Swift—caught _broom-tampering. _Put on all sorts of extra charms to help his team, even spells to repel other players and automatically dodge Bludgers. My department came down hard on him. Got suspended from playing for a full year and disqualified the Arrows from three or four games, if I recall correctly."

"That's our Percy," Aunt Ginny said dryly as she scribbled a note about the current score. "Stalwart defender of broomstick regulations."

Hugo looked confused. "But the Arrows were _cheating,_ Aunt Ginny! If Uncle Percy hadn't stopped them, they'd _still_ be cheating right now!"

Percy looked at Hugo with a strange mixture of surprise and gratitude. Aunt Ginny rolled her eyes a little and went back to watching the game.

The Chudley Cannons lost. But at least they lost fair and square.

* * *

The Weasley family was very close-knit, and the Burrow was the hub all their activities. Just about every day someone would Floo in from around the country to visit or, if they worked, ask Grandma Weasley to babysit. There were usually at least half a dozen kids and two or three adults there at any given time.

Percy was there on this particular day because of simple boredom: it was his day off, Audrey had taken the girls to see her parents for the week and his flat was feeling a touch lonely. At the moment his mother was cleaning upstairs and the kids were outside playing Quidditch; he poked his head out to check on them every so often, but Victoire and her boyfriend Teddy were watching them so he didn't need to do much. He was filling time with some memos that he had brought with him from work (as usual).

The backdoor opened. Percy looked up just long enough to see Hugo drag himself in, his windswept hair even messier than usual and his eyes on his feet. His new Lightspeed 440 dragged on the floor behind him.

"Hello, Hugo," Percy said breezily as his nephew pulled up a chair across from him, laying his broom under the table.

"Hi."

His voice was thick and shaking. Percy looked up again; Hugo's expression made it clear that he was very close to crying. He started to rise from his seat.

"Are you alright, Hugo? Did you get hurt, or—?"

"No. I'm alright." Then, after a moment, "I didn't catch the Snitch. My team lost."

"Oh." Percy sat back down, relief settling in. "Well. That's not a very big deal, is it? One of the teams had to lose, after all."

"We only lost because I flew off into the forest. I thought I saw a Jobberknoll and I wanted to catch it." He sank even lower in his seat. "It was only a blue tit."

"Oh." Percy was not quite sure where this was going. "Well, that's...probably a mistake that anybody could make."

Hugo sniffled. "My whole team was really mad at me. Especially Lily. She said we would have won if my brain had been working right for once."

"Oh. Well..."

Percy trailed off, not quite sure what he should say. This was another odd thing about Hugo—you could call him a freak and he would just grin at you, play jokes on him and he would laugh along, but then, one time out a hundred, someone would do the same thing and suddenly his whole cheery persona would collapse like a house of cards. Percy wondered if Lily even realized how much she had hurt him—she must have snapped at him a thousand times before without any problem, yet now here he sat, looking pale and pathetic and even more tiny than usual.

"Is there...anything I can get you to make you feel better?" Percy asked awkwardly. "Some pumpkin juice, perhaps?"

"No thanks."

Hugo was quiet for a long time, and Percy just stared at him. He wished Ron or Hermione were there, because he certainly had no idea what to do in this sort of situation. (He could stumble through something like this with his own daughters, but _Hugo?_) He was starting to think of calling his mother from upstairs when Hugo said "Uncle Percy?"

"Yes?"

"...You know how my dad and the other grown-ups act like they don't like you sometimes?"

Percy twitched. Sometimes it was hard to tell if Hugo was trying to insult you or if he merely had no concept of tact. "I...don't know what you mean, Hugo."

"You know—like when my dad calls you a prat, or Aunt Ginny says you're a workaholic bore, or when Uncle Bill drinks too much firewhiskey and talks about that time you wet yourself—"

"_You can stop explaining now,_" Percy said rather loudly.

"Okay," Hugo said, his tone still dull and quiet, oblivious to the annoyance in his uncle's voice. "Well, do things like that ever make you feel like...I don't know..." His voice grew quieter and quieter, his lips barely moving, to the point where Percy had to lean in to hear him. "Like maybe you're just too different than everyone else? Like you just...don't belong with the rest of the family?"

His tone was so miserable and his face so pale and still and un-Hugo-ish that Percy found it hard to speak for a moment; he had seen Hugo sobbing into his mother's robes before, but never would have expected to see him acting like _this. _Finally he shook his head, forcefully, and without thinking put a hand on Hugo's tiny shoulder. "Hugo, do you really think all _that?_ Just because you got distracted during one Quidditch game?"

"I get distracted during _every_ Quidditch game. People are _always_ saying I'm weird. Nobody else _ever_ acts like I do." He hesitated. "Sometimes I think that I should just Transfigure myself to have a dog head and run off to join the Muggle circus or something."

"Well, you are—er—certainly a very _unique_ personality," Percy said carefully, his gaze wandering up toward the ceiling. "But—surely you know that your mum and dad and all of us care about you a great deal? I mean, nobody can just—give up on someone they love just because they have some little differences. Do you understand what I mean?"

For the first time Hugo looked up and met his gaze. Percy was pleased to see at least some of his misery having faded, giving way to his normal gleam of confused curiosity.

"But _you_ gave up on the family once."

Percy's relief instantly died; he felt like he had just been dunked in very cold water. "P—Pardon?"

"During the Second War. Dad says you went to work for the Ministry, even though they had evil frog-women in charge. And that you didn't talk to anyone else in the family for _years._"

Percy was going to kill Ron. Or at least not get him a Christmas present this year.

"I—" Percy wondered if he should lie. He removed his glasses and shined them on his robe, using the spare seconds to try to find the right words. "It's true that I did have some issues with the rest of the family...at that time."

"Was it because everybody thought you were a prat?"

Still that tone of seriousness despite the implicit insult. Percy was beginning to feel weary now, and confused. He wanted to say something that would cheer Hugo up, not look back at his own foolish decisions from the War. He tried to gather his thoughts, including some very old ones that he had packed away more than twenty years before.

"I stop talking to the family for...complicated reasons. Your Uncle Harry was asking us all to believe some very unusual things." He paused, and now his voice turned quiet too. "But I suppose...I would be lying if I said that that didn't have something to do with it. The rest of the family didn't seem to have much trouble believing very unusual things, but I did. And it seemed...unfair to me, that I was supposed to put all my plans on hold when none of them would even consider how important those plans were to me. They all thought my dreams were stupid, but I..."

He caught sight of Hugo's face, rapt but unreadable, and suddenly shook his head. "But whatever my reasons, I was _wrong_ to think all that, Hugo. I _did_ feel like I didn't belong in this family. But I missed them terribly when I left. That's why I made up with them."

Hugo looked down again. "Do you think any of them missed _you?_"

"I certainly hope so," Percy said, though he winced, because the truth was he had never been very sure about that. He knew his mother had, and Bill and Charlie had reached out to him a bit at first, but the others...

"Do you...think anyone would miss _me_ if _I_ ran away?"

"_Everyone_ would miss you, Hugo." He hesitated for just a moment. "I know I would."

The young boy looked away, his face turning pink. "Thanks, Uncle Percy."

There was a very long pause, and Percy began to feel uncomfortable again. He wondered if there was something else he was supposed to say to make sure Hugo was all better. "Do you want to go back outside?" he asked finally. "I bet Lily would apologize to you if we let her know she hurt your feelings."

"I'd rather stay in, if that's okay." He motioned to the folder of parchments sprawled out on the table. "What are you working on?"

"What?" Percy looked down at his work as if he had totally forgotten that it was there. "Oh—just some memos from the Norwegian Ministry of Magic. Setting up Portkeys ahead of the European Cup, that sort of thing."

"Can I help?"

"Well, it's not really a two-wizard job, but...I suppose."

Hugo smiled wanly.

* * *

A few minutes later Victoire poked her head into the house. She had been a little worried when Hugo ran off, concerned that his teammates' comments had actually hurt him. She half-expected to catch him curled up crying in Grandma Weasley's lap, but instead found him sitting next to Uncle Percy, the two of them playing tic-tac-toe on the back sides of his memos. She stared for a minute, shrugged and then went back out without a word.

* * *

Molly Weasley was just cleaning up after dessert when the fireplace blazed green. Ron stepped out, beating some ash out of his work robes. "Good evening, Mum. How are the kids?"

"Oh, they're fine, dear," she said, sending the dirty dishes off to clean themselves in the kitchen. "Rose is upstairs with Lily and Albus, and Hugo has been trying to talk Percy's ear off since early this afternoon."

Ron raised his eyebrow at that, but sure enough he found the two of them in the living room, Hugo talking excitedly while Percy smiled and nodded despite having the look of a trapped animal in his eye. "Oh! Good evening, Ron," he said quickly as his youngest brother strolled into the room.

"Hey Dad!" Hugo said, instantly forgetting whatever it was he had been talking about. (Percy had not been able to follow a word of it.)

"Hey, kiddo," Ron said, ruffling his son's hair. "You and your sister ready to go?"

"Just let me get my broom!"

He ran upstairs. Ron and Percy exchanged a look, and Ron couldn't help but be a little amused by how worn out his brother appeared. "Sorry. He's quite the little chatterbox, isn't he?"

"Hmm, quite," Percy muttered. A beat passed. "But don't be sorry. I rather enjoyed his company today."

Ron looked curious again, but by then Hugo had raced back downstairs with Rose on his heels. However, before they could leave Hugo ran to Percy and surprised him with a very tight hug. The top of Hugo's bushy hair barely came up to his uncle's chest.

"Thanks for everything, Uncle Percy." And then, in a whisper, "Can you keep a secret?"

Percy bent down. "Yes?" he asked, trying not to sound ragged.

"You're my favorite uncle."

Percy blinked, too surprised to think of a response. Hugo grinned at him before detaching himself and running back to his father; Percy watched them disappear into the kitchen and smiled too, then collapsing wearily onto his parents' couch.

* * *

**A/N:** I sort of want to do more of these, like a "Favorite Uncles" series or something. Maybe one about Albus and Ron?

I hope you enjoyed, and thanks in advance for any reviews, faves, etc.!


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